FAO responds to outbreak of swine fever in Benin

Government sources in the West African country of
Benin said in mid-September that 2 700 pigs have died in
an outbreak of swine fever that surfaced during August in
the country's Atlantique and Oueme provinces. FAO's
Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and
Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES) immediately called for an
emergency assessment mission to define the nature of the
outbreak and draw up a plan of action to control and
eliminate the disease as soon as possible.

Benin: areas
where the swine fever epidemic has been reported.
The city of Cotonou is a focus with most centres of
infection being within a 30 km radius, many of them
on the banks of Lake Nokoué

The Benin authorities have reported this epidemic to
the OIE (International Office of Epizootics) as classical
swine fever, but experts fear that the disease could prove
to be African Swine Fever (ASF). There is no vaccine against
ASF. The disease can only be controlled by a combination of
slaughtering, quarantine and movement limitation. An
epidemic that broke out in April 1996 in Côte d'Ivoire
- where the disease was previously unknown - devastated the
country's pork industry. Some 22 000 pigs died of the
disease and a further 100 000 were slaughtered in the effort
to stamp out the epidemic. All sales of pork were halted in
May 1996 and the government only gave the all-clear to
resume trading in early 1997. The total cost of the epidemic
was US$18 million.

Some 60 percent of the population of Benin depends
entirely on agriculture for its livelihood and Benin's 600
000 pigs play a vital role in income generation and national
food security. In Benin, as in Côte d'Ivoire, pigs are
bred in three settings - intensively on large-scale
commercial pig farms stocked with improved breeds, in
low-input/low-output backyard production units in outlying
areas of towns and cities and in rural areas, and in
villages where they run wild. Commercial pig farmers suffer
devastating losses in such epidemics, as do those with pigs
in their backyards, between which the disease spreads
rapidly.

Dr George Nassara, a senior official in the Benin
Government Stock Breeding Department told Reuters that the
fatality rate among infected pigs appears to be 100 percent.
He said that efforts to control the disease were being
hampered by "clandestine trade" in infected pigs and failure
to dispose of infected carcasses safely. Nassara was also
concerned that the epidemic could spread beyond the southern
provinces where it has now been identified. FAO Animal
Health Officer for Infectious Disease Emergencies, Dr Peter
Roeder, said that the risk of the disease spreading to
neighbouring Nigeria and Togo was also extremely high.

FAO's first priority has been to get an epidemic disease
control consultant out to the country as quickly as
possible. A Tunisian expert in epidemic disease control who
also worked in Côte d'Ivoire was expected to undertake
a mission before the end of September. His first task will
be to identify the strain of the disease, how far it has
already spread and what the risks of further spread are.
Samples must be taken from infected animals and submitted to
an international reference laboratory for diagnosis. Control
measures being implemented by the government will be
assessed and immediate actions necessary to stamp out the
disease must be identified. This first mission is being
jointly organized by EMPRES and OIE who are underwriting the
cost.

Roeder stressed that the current outbreak in Benin
underlines the need for emergency preparedness on the part
of countries. "It is vitally important that countries are
able to recognize at the earliest stages when such epidemics
are evolving and are prepared to react quickly", he said.
"Even a short delay of a few weeks can make the difference
between rapid elimination of disease and a protracted and
costly epidemic". Following a regional workshop in Abidjan
on the subject in March 1997, a project is being drawn up to
work with West African countries on emergency preparedness
and contingency planning for control of ASF and other
transboundary diseases.